Sunday, 2 September 2012

Between 1980 and 1983, annual Bangor area compilation tapes were released, bringing together a selection of the music made in the area during the previous year. We have already posted 1980's "Overloaded and We're Running" and now we jump somewhat unchronologically to the final tape in the series, which appeared in May 1983. This time, there were 29 tracks, covering a wide spectrum and lasting a full two hours, the release being spread across two C60 cassettes.

Among the tracks featured, all otherwise unreleased, was the first ever recording by the legendary Cut Tunes, the last ever recording by Fay Ray and the only released solo recordings by John Cratchley, Ian McMillan (as 'Manny'), Chris Walker, John Cratchley, Dav Devalle and Alan Holmes. We also get some electro-psych from the original Smiths, who had been operating under that name for a good couple of years before Morrisssey's gang took it on and one-offs from otherwise unheard groups like Armchair Theatre, Jung Again and Legendary Mountaineers.

Brer Fox were the ancestors of The Scapegoats, who can still be heard regularly at the Auckland in Menai Bridge, and Alternative Destinations marked the recorded debut of both Emyr Tomos, who went onto play with the likes of Glassglue, Hungry Dog Brand, Reinheitsgebot, Zombie Noise etc.. and Ann Matthews, who went on to fame and fortune with Fflaps, Ecotgram and Annalogue.

Many of these groups were very short lived, and some of them were even quite good.

We hope to unearth lost, forgotten or obscure music from the north Wales music scene of the past few decades and make it available again, or in many cases, for the first time.

Much of the music here has never seen an official release, and the stuff that has is all currently out of print as far as we know. Wherever possible, at least one member of the respective band has given permission for their music to be uploaded, but if anyone else has a claim to the copyright of anything here that they object to being shared, please get in touch with us and we will remove it.

All downloads are encoded as 320 kbs mp3s, providing as reasonably good quality sound as can be expected in the circumstances.